Bill Venners: How will the emerging
hardware environment of network-connected embedded devices change the way
software and APIs are developed?

James Gosling: I think the biggest difference is that you can't just sit alone in a room and build stuff, because the things you're building interact with everything out there.
You can't just sit alone and do
whatever you want.

Bill Venners: And why is that?

James Gosling: Because you're trying to interact with other things,
you have to know what the other things do.
If there are multiple people doing similar kinds of things, they have to have some kind of an agreement on how these things should work. If you're designing an electrical power delivery mechanism, for example, you have to design a wall socket. And everybody has to use the same wall socket; otherwise those toasters won't be able to plug in to you.

It becomes an environment where people have to be much more socially involved. It really is a community thing.